Parents’ Mishaps–You Are Not Alone

We’ve all been there–done something we can laugh about when we look back.

As parents, we are harried. My kids are 18 and 16, and still my day never seems to end. When they were small and needed constant close supervision, I remember how many things I had to keep track of. Chances are, something gave.

Last week I was listening to the radio. one of the morning show hosts is a fairly new mom; she has a toddler. Long story short, her male counterpart asked her why she thought to text him one morning, when she locked her keys in the car. (Not sure if her daughter was in her car seat when she did so.)

He told her he felt badly; he was too physically far away to be able to help her in any way.

She maintained how stressed out she’d felt that morning, and how she just wanted to talk to somebody at that moment; that she sat down on the curb and cried while she waited for AAA to show.

The DJ’s story reminded me of when my older guy was still an infant. The day before my mishap, we’d gone to see my husband’s family. My brother-in-law is a volunteer firefighter, and is often involved in rescues. We wound up in a discussion about a man whose wife had asked him to drop the baby off (at daycare?) one summer morning. Because the man wasn’t in the habit of doing so, he forgot he had the baby and went directly to work. He supposedly came back to find his child had died in the extreme heat of a car in the summer.

The next day, I remember going to a nearby shopping plaza. I had a mini-van that I had turned on to run the A/C—so that the vehicle would cool while I was putting my son in his car seat. I don’t remember the details, but I locked him in the running, air-conditioned car—with me not in it.

I generally don’t panic, but the horribly tragic story of the man forgetting his baby in the car had freaked me out. If I had a cell phone I’m sure it would have been in my purse already in the car. I ran into the closest shop—the pizza place—and begged someone to call for help.

Within minutes, our mobile precinct—a bus-sized converted RV—showed (It looked very much like the one in this image. Talk about mortified!) The very kind police officers jimmied open my door—which–lucky for me–they still did back then.

After the police left and I calmed down, I noticed I had left the front passenger window open a few inches. Had I not lost my brain, I could have asked the pizza guy to borrow a long-handled utensil (i.e., a spatula). With it, all I would have had to do was push the button to unlock the door.

We’re all human, my dear parents and caregivers.The preceding is only ONE of many incidents my children and I have survived. (Trust me, I’ve truly been blessed that some things I never foresaw happening didn’t end worse than they did.)

Do you have a parent mishap story? How did you feel then and how do you feel about it now that you can look back on it?